GM Unveils ‘No Worries’ Used Car Campaign

General Motors will launch a new national print and online advertising campaign next week, promising consumers “no worries” when they buy a GM Certified Used Vehicle.

The campaign aims to raise the profile of the program and drive traffic to the GM Certified program’s Web site and 3,700 dealer sites.

“The category still needs as much help as possible in terms of creating awareness of what the benefits of Certified are all about. That’s a key driver, to help educate and increase the awareness,” said J. Schaffer, national advertising and marketing manager, GM Certified Used Vehicles. “In a category that’s not clearly differentiated, you need breakthrough advertising.”

The print and online ads, created by IPG’s Mullen of Wenham, Mass., use the tagline “GM Certified Used Vehicles: No worries,” utilizing flash cards to depict all of the things a buyer of a certified used car would no longer have to worry about. There are a total of nine different flash cards in the campaign and images will consist of a tow truck, hitchhiking, call box, wheel shimmy, flares, hydraulic lift, inexplicable noise, breakdown lane and leaky oil.

“Our goal for the campaign was to make the creative more personal to the consumer,” said Brad Audet, SVP/account director at Mullen. “‘No worries’ speaks to an emotional customer benefit. The certified category is driven by peace of mind, and for consumers to fully achieve peace of mind they need confidence that their used vehicle purchase and ownership experience is worry-free.”

Online components include a variety of banner placements on automotive verticals like AutoTrader.com, AOL Autos, Yahoo Autos, Edmunds.com, KBB.com and Cars.com. Some of the units will include a search box, where users can search by vehicle type or by GM’s brands directly from the banner ad. GM will also drive traffic through search ads on Google and MSN Search.

Print ads will appear in a variety of national print publications, including Essence, People, Sports Illustrated and Better Homes & Gardens, with magazine inserts and half-page spread ads. Media duties were handled by Publicis Groupe’s GM PlanWorks along with GM’s former agency, IPG’s GM MediaWorks.

GM sees print as a good opportunity to explain the program in detail as buyers get closer to the purchase point, and Internet advertising as a way to reach the growing number of auto shoppers who go online to research an auto purchase, Schaffer said.

The campaign also includes a significant Hispanic-targeted element, with specific creative that tailors the mainstream general campaign to Hispanic consumers. Those ads will appear in Spanish language publications and Web sites, including People en Espanol, Ser Padres and MSN Latino.

Emotion can be very powerful when trying to reach an audience, and it can be boosted by linking it with the way memory affects human behaviour. How can all of this apply to the demanding mobile audience?